Aged Sony exec Shuhei Yoshida says the PlayStation advertising and marketing crew needed to totally redesign Smash Bandicoot in PS1 commercials because he changed into once too grotesque for the Jap market

Apologies for diving straight into it, but do you focus on how fantastic Smash Bandicoot is? The Japanese PlayStation marketing team certainly didn’t think so, which led them to direct the publisher to revamp the unsightly character for local advertisements during the game’s 1996 launch.

“The eyes were green,” former Sony executive Shuhei Yoshida states regarding Smash Bandicoot in a recent interview with gaming personality Kyle Bosman. “He had a very, um, thick, uh – what’s that called? Eyebrows. And that was somewhat intimidating.”

To adjust the bipedal marsupial’s wayward traits – and fur – Yoshida remembers asking his marketing team to change Smash’s fur color to brown, “like the Japanese people, and […] make the eyebrows thinner.” Naturally. There’s never a promotional display showing empathy for an unstable marsupial like that awkward fellow Smash if he doesn’t at least share your fur color.

As a proud brown fur-holder myself, I can confidently say I’d prefer not to look at things like toddlers, for instance, if they have green eyes, because it reminds me too much of olives and makes me quite hungry for tapenade. And, honestly, I don’t even like tapenade.

You see my point. But Smash had bigger worries. As we’ve established, “Crash was furry, right?” Yoshida continues. “On the outside. And that’s a bit frightening – looks like some creature. So we asked [the marketing team], can you make it a bit, […], for our promotional materials, make it really smooth? Like a shiny skin?”

So they polished their character until his skin glittered like a fresh can of Pepsi. Oh, and one more thing, folks: if you want to thrive in this industry, you’ll need to change your name.

“I had an incredible marketer in Japan,” Yoshida shares, “and she mentioned that, ‘What’s Crash Bandicoot? Crash is good, but ‘Bandicoot’ – no one in Japan has heard that word, ‘Bandicoot.’ So, let’s create a tune for the TV advertisement.”

What seems to be the final product – preserved on YouTube in low quality – showcases Smash as